American Sniper killer Eddie Ray Routh worshiped Chris Kyle and looked on him, 'like a movie action hero' during his time in the Marines, one of his comrades has told Daily Mail Online.

In a bitter twist, the man who would end up gunning down America's most prolific sniper, spent his own military career 'idolizing Kyle specifically' and revering the Special Forces of which Kyle was a part.

'It's what made this entire situation even more odd,' according to Corey Smalley, a former Marine who served alongside Routh, 26, and the first comrade to speak out publicly in his defense.

He said: 'Something was severely wrong with Eddie at that time for him to be able to do what he did and especially to somebody he idolized.'

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Online Smalley, 28, has slammed critics who claim that the Marine could not have suffered from PTSD because he never saw combat on his tour in Iraq; rejected depictions of Kyle as a volatile, troubled man during his years in service; and insisted that the man he knew and served alongside bears no relation to the 'monster' who gunned down two innocent men on the shooting range that day in February 2013.

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At play: Corporal Corey Smalley shared this picture of Eddie Ray Routh relaxing at Camp Fallujah to highlight his belief that Routh was a normal Marine. A group has tried to claim he was damaged before his service

Closing stages: Eddie Ray Routh pictured in court last Friday. Rebuttal witnesses are due in the case today and the jury is likely to go out in the course of the week, after closing speeches and the judge summing up

Hero: Chris Kyle, America's most lethal sniper, was shot dead by Eddie Ray Routh along with Chad Littlefield, as they tried to help their fellow veteran. The trial centers on whether Routh was disturbed when he killed

Portrayal: Bradley Cooper plays Kyle in the hit movie American Sniper. He did not win the Best Actor Oscar but the film has been a critical and popular hit

Smalley, 28, said: 'I want to defend who he was, not what he did because it bothers me that things can be said and misconstrued and that he is being made out to be a monster. He wasn't a monster until that day.'

Rebuttal witnesses are expected to take the stand today in the court in Stephenville, Texas. With closing arguments set to follow the most high profile-trial in America is edging ever closer to a verdict.

The timing could hardly be any more emotive - just two days ago Kyle’s widow, Taya, attended the Oscars where Clint Eastwood’s biopic starring Bradley Cooper was nominated for six Oscars.

It won only Best Editing but the movie’s depicition of Kyle the hero, the husband and the father versus Routh the pale, shifty misfit is one that the defense have fought to counter and the prosecution to forward.

The prosecution is seeking life without parole, contending that Routh knew what he was doing and knew that it was wrong when he gunned down Kyle, 38, and friend Chad Littlefield, 35, at Rough Creek shooting range on 2 February 2013.

Kyle had been trying to help the former Marine assimilate to civilian life after his mother, Jodi Routh, turned to the celebrated sniper in apparent desperation.

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Routh's family claim that they had struggled to get help for their son but were repeatedly let down by the Veterans Affairs psychiatric hospital in Dallas which last saw him just 8 days before the shooting and found him to be,' no imminent danger' to himself or others.

Prosecutors insist that Routh's defense – that he was suffering from PTSD, is a paranoid schizophrenic and showed signs of psychosis that could not be faked – falls down because he did not see combat during his time in Iraq and therefore could not have suffered from PTSD.

Instead, they claim, Routh's behaviour can be explained by the fact that he was drunk and high having smoked 'wet' marijuana (soaked in formaldehyde) and drunk whiskey on the morning of the shooting.

But according to Smalley: 'PTSD doesn't work that way. I think Eddie DID suffer from it and he did what the majority of Marines do, he suppressed and suppressed and he self-medicated.'

Smalley deployed to Iraq with Routh in 2007 to Camp Fallujah where the men were roommates and 'lived like brothers'.

He takes issue with a recent investigation into Routh carried out by veterans association, WarFighters Foundation which backed the notion that Routh did not have PTSD and claimed he could not have been traumatized by his duties in Haiti because 'he never left ship'.

On base: Eddie Ray Routh plays football at Camp Fallujah while deployed in Iraq. Although he did not see combat, his comrade Corey Smalley says he can understand how his deployment could have led to PTSD

Unit: Eddie Ray Routh (to the right of the Marine holding a football) was part of a group looking after weaponry at Camp Fallujah, during the troop surge designed to pacify Iraq

Arsenal: Eddie Ray Routh with some of the weaponry the camp was holding which had been seized from insurgents the area around it by patrol units. Corey Smalley said the camp was a place of danger

On base: Eddie Ray Routh with weapons from the armory in a picture shared by Corey Smalley. He describes the base as a place of constant stress and tells how it was known to men based there as 'mortaritaville'.

Routh told family members that his role in Haiti was to fish the bodies of men, women and children out of the ocean, pile then onto front loading vehicles and dump them in mass graves.

Smalley insisted: 'You have to remember that we were in Fallujah which was still taking indirect fire from enemy combats, not every day, but just randomly. And everywhere around us was still a hot zone.'

Emphasizing the stress of living in a state of constant uncertainty and mortal danger in a camp known colloquially as 'mortaritaville', Smalley explained: 'During the time we were there, a vehicle convoy left camp at the gate closest to us and on their way out there was an IED right at the gate. It went off killing everybody in the vehicle.

'So there's a lot of people that hear, well Eddie wasn't in combat but what they don't look at is that it's a stressful environment.'

Certainly the man that Smalley recalled is a very different person from the bloated, impassive figure seen in court each day or the ranting, wild-eyed creature who confessed to having 'taken two souls' on the day of the crimes.

The Eddie Ray Routh that Smalley knew was not, he said, 'demented his whole life like WarFighters made it sound'.

He pointed out: 'If we would have seen that we wouldn't sleep right next to him while he had a loaded gun every night for hundreds of nights.'

Armory: Corey Smalley shared this picture of his comrade and friend Eddie Ray Routh because others from him fooling in the armory have been used to portray him as already volatile while in the war zone.

Incomplete: With a plated AK-47 assault rifle, this picture of Eddie Ray Routh has been used to highlight concerns about his mental state while deployed, but Corey Smalley says it does not tell the complete story

Duty: Although Eddie Ray Routh's unit was not in combat, Corey Smalley, who served as a corporal, says that the stress was a constant factor, especially as they were in Fallujah, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq

Goofing: Stressed Marines in the base posed with seized enemy weaponry in a group, not just like the initial pictures which surfaced of Eddie Ray Routh. Corey Smalley says he saw the Marine as a 'follower' not 'a leader'

Ideal: Corey Smalley says of his former comrade: 'Eddie to me was like a teenager- always looking up to people. Eddie was almost the ideal Marine because he could take orders and do exactly what he was told.'

Nickname: Eddie Ray Routh's Texas roots earned him the nickname Ponyboy, 'regardless of whether he liked it or not'. Smalley, who left the Marines in 2009, describes Routh as 'goofy' and 'super happy all the time.

He said, 'Eddie to me was like a teenager- always looking up to people. In the Marine Corps you're brought up idolizing people who've been recognized for things like confirmed kills, medals of honor - Eddie wasn't any different.

'Eddie wasn't a leader. In fact Eddie was almost the ideal Marine because he could take orders and do exactly what he was told regardless of whether he liked it or not.'

Smalley, who left the Marines in 2009, described Routh as 'goofy' and 'super happy all the time,' 'always looking on the brighter side' and 'proud' to be from Texas.

He said, 'We could be in cold weather, in T-shirt and shorts doing push ups in the mud and Eddie would be laughing and having fun while we're all miserable. Eddie would be making jokes and trying to have fun out of it to make it better for everybody.'

And he insisted that episodes described in the WarFighters investigation in which Routh was alleged to have beaten a fellow Marine 'almost to death' and 'body-slammed another unconscious' were taken out of context and misconstrued. They were in truth, he said, 'pranks' and horseplay that simply got out of control.

He explained, 'The story that he had beaten a Marine almost to death. That never happened. They guy had gotten a bloody nose over a prank we pulled on Eddie that I was at the center of.

Couple: Chris Kyle and his wife Taya. She had backed his work helping traumatized war veterans, which is what he and Chad Littlefield were trying to do with Eddie Ray Routh when he shot them both dead

Ordeal Taya Kyle has been present throughout the trial of her husband's killer in Stephenville, Texas, and was there again today as the trial enters its final stages

Respite: On Sunday Taya Kyle attended the Oscars where she watched the film missing out on all but one award.

Portrayal: Taya Kyle is played by Sienna Miller in the movie which sees Bradley Cooper play Chris Kyle

On this particular occasion Smalley and his comrades' 'prank' consisted of cutting out a picture of Routh's face, sticking it on a rainbow flag background and printing the word 'WANTED' above it and 'GAY PONYBOY' below. 'Ponyboy' was Routh's nickname because he came from Texas.

Smalley explained, 'You know that phrase, 'There's only two things that come from Texas: steers and queers'? We used that to mess with Eddie because that was the only thing that would get him going.

'We posted this picture all over the place and Eddie saw it and thought it was funny but you had some guys who would just sit there and laugh and laugh…It was just a joke but we took it too far.

'Eddie pushed a couple of the guys around, a couple of the guys he went to grab took off yelling, running out of the door and Eddie's yelling and they're yelling and one got a bloody nose.

'As soon as he saw blood Eddie was like, "Oh my God." He didn't mean to do it but it happened.

My opinion is that he was self-medicating which is what the majority of Marines do. They get out and they don't want to admit they have an issue and they just look for something to dull the pain and make them forget and it's the families that have to deal with it and they're the ones that have to go out and try to get them help

Corey Smalley, Routh's comrade

'We took it too far. But nobody got really hurt. It was a bloody nose. It wasn't a broken nose.'

As for the body-slamming incident, Smalley explained: 'We always wrestled a lot, all of us, myself included. It was just that kind of a barbaric thing that testosterone fuelled guys just do – not to hurt each other.

'One of our own guys – in our group – would walk through the door and you'd just come out of nowhere and grab him and start wrestling with him and it was all fun and games.

'Well, that time, Eddie had put a guy on the floor and his head hit the floor and it knocked him out.

'As soon as it happened and he went limp Eddie freaked out.

'He was trying to get him to wake up and he sat with him for probably four or six hours and followed him around the rest of the day asking him if he was okay, telling him he was sorry and if there was anything he could do?'

During his time in Iraq one of Routh's duties was to guard prisoners at Balad jail. Conflicting reports have emerged on how he conducted and viewed that role with some claiming he sympathized with America's captives and others that he brutalized the prisoners in his charge.

Smalley remembered Routh confiding in him on his return from guard duty. He said, 'That's all the talked about for probably the first two weeks we were together again after he did guard duty – the things that he saw and the things that other people did and that he kind of did because that's what they did.

'Eddie didn't feel bad that those people were in prison but he did feel that they could have been treated better as humans.

'Even though he would tell me that these guys would refuse to bathe and eat and he didn't understand it, he couldn't understand how they could let them go two days without water. Then they would finally give them water and they would just sit there and not drink it.

'The way he looked at things was more of a kind of humanitarian type thing than just a bloodthirsty Marine that didn't care about anybody and just wanted to kill people.'

But there was, Smalley said, a fundamental change in Routh when he came back from a humanitarian mission to Haiti following the country's devastating earthquake in 2010.

Emotive: The release of American Sniper and its Oscar nominations have meant the trial of Eddie Ray Routh is taking place at the same time as his death is being remembered across America

Parents: Derby and Wayne Kyle, Chris's mother and father, have also been present throughout the trial

Crime scene: This was one of the assault rifles recovered in the aftermath of Eddie Ray Routh's killing of Chad Littlefield and Chris Kyle. Both men were shot by Routh at a shooting range near Glen Rose, Texas

He said, 'The last I heard a friend of ours had got back from Haiti and told me that Eddie was totally different. He said that Eddie had told him he had seen a lot of things that disturbed him and there was nothing he could do about it. It wasn't like he was in combat.'

Looking back, Smalley admitted, Routh was drinking 'heavily' after Iraq. He said, 'Honestly, my opinion is that he was self-medicating which is what the majority of Marines do.

'They get out and they don't want to admit they have an issue and they just look for something to dull the pain and make them forget and it's the families that have to deal with it and they're the ones that have to go out and try to get them help.'

Routh had bounced in and out of psychiatric care following deeply disturbing incidents during which he threatened to shoot himself and others several times before his fateful meeting with Kyle. He was on a cocktail of nine prescription drugs including powerful anti-psychotics and he had been officially diagnosed as suffering from PTSD.

Smalley recalled hearing the news that Routh had shot Kyle and Littlefield with utter disbelief.

Detention: Footage of Eddie Ray Routh from the dash cam video of the police car which arrested him after the shooting of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield

Lost promise: Eddie Ray Routh and his then girlfriend Jennifer Weed in a picture shown to the jury. Even if he is cleared of murder, he faces never being freed because of his mental state

As he was: Eddie Ray Routh before his graduation into the Marine Corps. Corey Smalley says he was a natural Marine - a leader not a follower - and that nobody could have predicted what would happen in the end

He said, 'I look back and I wonder, 'Did I miss something?' And I know a lot of other guys we deployed with are the same way and they can't comprehend what it is that we missed.

'Because I had a lot of guys towards the end of my time in Iraq who had trouble with thoughts of suicide and they'd confide in me and I'd try to get them help with the chaplain and what have you but Eddie was never one of those guys.'

He and Routh would talk about fishing and Routh's love of being a Marine. The last time the men spoke, he said, Routh had been at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina drinking and partying at the barracks.

Today, Smalley said, 'I wish I could just to sit down with Eddie and talk with him because I know that he would probably tell me what happened and it would be nice to know, at least in his mind, what was going on and just see what's causing a lot of the issues and the suffering with him.'

Smalley is clear that Routh must face whatever justice is meted out to him. He said, 'He knows that he killed two innocent people. He's admitted that he killed them and he needs to be pushed through the justice system accordingly. But it wouldn't help to just lock him away. He needs to be hospitalized permanently. It's help that he needs.

'Between his last deployment to Haiti and this incident something happened to him because the person that killed these guys is not the person we all knew and he's not the person I served with.'